Private Prosecutions: Notable case

R -v- Mahoney (2015)

A Northern Ireland man was sentenced to 4 years in prison at Londonderry Crown Court last week for running an internet piracy scam.

David Groome had told the court that during a six year period the accused, Paul Mahoney, earned almost £300,000 from advertising revenue and he was likely to have cost the film industry millions of pounds in lost revenue.

There was considerable media interest in the case and Kieron Sharp, Director General of FACT (The Federation Against Software Theft) was in Court to hear sentence passed; Kieron commented about the important deterrent value of prosecutions of this kind.